Wendy Blacke

emotional wayfarer

Month: May 2023

  • A Patch of Sky

    A Patch of Sky

    I don’t look up enough, at least not in a meaningful way. I’m always watching where I’m going, point A to point B, or looking down at my feet or my phone. I’m never looking just for the sake of it. I’m not looking just to see.

    So when I pulled into a parking space at Save On Foods to run in for a few things for dinner, the patch of sky in front of me took me by surprise. To the left and right of it were brown brutalist apartment buildings, the top of the sky was cut off by the roof of my car, and the horizon sprouted trees. It was framed there like a painting on the wall of eternity.

    My breath caught in my lungs, I was covered in music, and I just sat, dashboard vents blowing my hair. I watched as clouds crept from behind one building, crawling across the divide to hide behind the other one. A window within a window. My heart felt so loud.

    For one aching moment I knew I was human. And I knew I was alone.

  • From a Second Floor Bathtub in the Rain

    From a Second Floor Bathtub in the Rain

    As I lower myself through steam, I’m transported to a place without time. It’s just me, this water, and this room. I sink into myself. Water ripples the hair at my temples while I close my eyes and sink deeper until only my nose and knees are above the waterline. I imagine I’m a submarine, hidden deep and safe in the warm water. Familiar lavender and palm leaves rise all around me, scenting the air. Ears submerged, the old-timey swing music of Glenn Miller playing just a few feet from me sounds much farther away. I imagine I’m listening secretly through a closed door, hearing the muffled trumpets and trombones play their lively tune.

    Held in the water, my body is amplified. I hear every heartbeat; every breath, as if it were right next to my ear. Each thought is magnified until my mind swims in static. I try to clear it all away; to think of nothing; to relax, but my mind keeps falling around him. I smile against the water and let my thoughts drift to conversations we’ve had about the way our minds are broken in some of the same places and that despite the cracks, his looks so beautiful to me. I think of the way his eyes remind me of some of my favorite paintings and that even though we might just be tourists in each other’s lives, he’s a song I want to keep listening to.

    When at last I emerge, the cooler air of the room refreshes the skin on my face, my breasts, my back, my arms. The music gets louder as my little underwater world fades to black. I rejoin the present moment. The colour in this room has been enhanced while the stresses of life disappear. I’m rejuvenated, but the soapy water couldn’t clean off the smile he painted on my face.

  • On the Hill

    On the Hill

    Cool prairie wind blows strands of hair across my brow. We are surrounded by people. Some I know and some I don’t. Their wet eyes are on us. Across the field is the tallest hill in sight. When he brought me here to meet his family for the first time, he told me they all called it Big Ben.

    Six of his friends lift him up. Their faces are grim, their steps precise. The glossy finish of the box matches the espresso floorboards in our home. The bundles of wheat are from the family farm. The flowers are blue like his favourite shirt now a shroud beneath the lid. Yesterday I tucked a newborn-sized onesie, just outgrown, in the box with him. It says Daddy’s Best Friend. 

    I tried not to think of how cold it was where they laid the box over six feet of removed earth. I tried not to think of how lonely it would be up here on the hill.

    Every mourner is silent. A breeze like a whisper rustles wheat fields in waves toward the horizon. I hold our son closer and kiss the top of his head. People are dabbing their faces with frozen tissues. 

    They are waiting for us. My eyes never leave him. My love, forever entombed.

    Finally, my heavy feet and heart move forward. I place my palm on the perfectly polished surface. A tear magnifies and darkens the wood for a moment before rolling away.

    I want to scream until I can’t breathe. I want to cut out my heart and bury it with him.

    My fingers tremble.

    Goodbye.

    We go back every so often, just our son and me. Happy Birthday, Happy Father’s Day, Merry Christmas my Love.

    The soil has settled. He has a stone to mark his place, his name carved hard and final with the date everything changed.

    With each visit our son grows taller and asks more questions about his father. I show him photos and tell him stories while we sit up there on the hill, with the wind in the wheat fields blowing our hair.

  • On ‘The Book’ and a Return to Blogging

    On ‘The Book’ and a Return to Blogging

    I think I was around 15 the first time one of my friends, upon hearing bits and pieces of my life story, said to me “you should write a book about your life!” and thus the idea of ‘The Book’ started to follow me around.

    I always thought, yeah, one day I’ll do it — I even started a few times but quit after retraumatizing myself writing about certain events. I had false starts when I was 20, then 24, and again at 32. But there was another barrier. As much as I wanted to tell my story I didn’t think people would care to read it, and even now embarking on that journey I maintain that to be true. Truly, most people aren’t going to care, but in taking on this project I don’t think that really matters to me anymore. At the base of everything, I write for myself. I want to hold a book in my hands that I put my heart and wisdom into and beyond that I don’t expect anything else.

    Now, I’m 37. I’m a mom. My life is stable and healthy and my psyche has been held and protected like a baby for long enough that I feel I can finally take it on. I started the year with a goal of writing more, but that goal is vague and insufficient to hold me accountable. So I added an additional goal: I will finish the book, whatever that may look like. It’s May, and I’ve been plowing forth with steady progress since January but I’m finding myself wanting to write more than ‘The Book’. There’s an excess of words, of stories, of feelings.

    I used to run a daily blog, which I started when I found out I was pregnant with my son. I wanted to document my pregnancy and motherhood. However, 4 weeks after my son was born, his father and love of my life passed away very suddenly and the blog became an outlet for my grief instead. I’d post every day, sharing my feelings and what I was going through. It was a coping strategy but it was also survival. I felt so alone, just me and my newborn, and I wanted a witness. I wanted someone to know I was alive and trying.

    Then, at some point, there were too many witnesses. I got freaked out by the numbers and stopped. I could blame it on the social phobia or stage fright, but looking back I think it really came down to impostor syndrome. I was struggling with the attention and why anyone could see value in what I had to say. I am doing better in that regard these days and finding my worth but as always I’m a work in progress. I’ve reached a point where I don’t care if my work gets attention, but I’m getting more comfortable with praise. It is what it is, and as long as I’m happy with what I’m putting out there, the rest is roses.

    So hey, blog, I guess I’m back.